AI agent governance
Also known as: agentic governance · autonomous agent oversight
AI agent governance is the set of rules and mechanisms that determine what an autonomous agent is allowed to do, before it acts.
It differs from model governance, which is about training, bias and evaluation. Here the question is not "is this model good" but "is this specific action, in this context, permitted".
It also differs from access management. An agent can be technically authorised to call an interface — permissions grant that — without the action being permitted by the organization's regulatory obligations. Those are two different layers, and the second is almost always missing.
It assumes a decision taken at the moment of action, not a quarterly review. An agent exporting a customer record at three in the morning is not waiting for a committee.
What it means for a small business
A small company enabling agents in a tool it buys inherits the obligations without writing a line of code. Deployment triggers the responsibilities, not model design.
So what actually applies to you?
A definition tells you what a term means, not what your organization must do. The assessment answers the second question — free, no credit card.
Updated September 1, 2026 · Educational definition; not legal advice.